EXHIBITION ANNOUNCEMENT - 30 LX BY VIRGILE SIMON BERTRAND

For more information click on 30 lx in the Exhibitions menu on the right.

DIORAMA PROJECTIONS - BRUCE AND NORMAN YONEMOTO BY STEVEN LAM 27 NOVEMBER 2010.

A rare chance to see some of the video works of Bruce and Norman Yonemoto in Hong Kong.  Many thanks to the artists and in particular to Steven Lam for introducing and leading the open discussion on the works.  Short, complex video works offering vivid and abrupt flashbacks to the 1980s in Kappa, sex and predacity and ostentation and Vault, love and desire, Dallas-style.  Sounds Like the Sound of Music presented a delightful rendition in Quechua of Julie Andrew’s signature song sung by a young Andean boy, appropriating the camera angles and scenes from the original and transposing them to the hills of Peru.  A seemingly straightforward work that conceals a multiplicity of cross references from Star Wars, The Sound of Music to the perpetuation of Orientalism in mass entertainment.

What's Not To Like? Mois de la Photographie, Paris 2010

Not just photography.  To say why we like it would take too long.  So here it is.  In bullet points:-

• Harry Callahan, Variations at the Fondation Henri Cartier Bresson.  No gimmicks or pretence.  Just sheer brilliance.  
• The spectacular Richard Avedon sale at Christies, Paris, reassurance, if any were necessary, that the market for photography is expanding exponentially. 
• Gabriel Orozco, Centre Pompidou – intriguing but utterly baffling.  Objects of desire – a beautiful silver lacquered Citroen DS pared down to a single seater; a pair of black leather shoes melded together at the sole; insects set like iridescent jewels embedded into the soft clay or putty used to crush them.
• Andre Kertesz, Jeu de Paume, a retrospective that apart from straight chronology, manages to suggest the emotional and psychological evolution of the artist.  Early photographs are vital, intimate, like meeting old friends.  Later photographs, particularly from his 50 years in America, distant and melancholy.  Last of all, Kertesz’s final elegiac Polaroids produced on the death of his wife Elizabeth.
• Eikoh Hosoe at Galerie PHOTO4 – prints from the series Kamaitachi, a rare distillation of the disturbing and the lyrical: beautiful anarchic nightmares.
• Half Life - Michael Ackerman @ Galerie Vu.  Heartstopping.  Filmic, in spite of the artist's intended eradication of narrative. 

What's Not to Like? - Singapore International Photography Festival

To say why we like it would take too long.  So here it is.  In bullet points.

The second Singapore International Photography Festival, open call showcase, a biennial event, taking place in venues around the city.  HUMAN: NATURE focusing on the relationship between dependence and destruction.  Short lived, some exhibitions lasting only a three weeks.  Not as grand or as well supported as the Singapore Biennale, but optimistic that the Festival will in future become a fixture on the international photography calendar.

Hee Seung Chung and Lee Il Woo at Human Faces - National Museum of Singapore

• Hee Seung Chung The Reading.  Portraits of actors rehearsing, a double layering of performance, oscillating between intellect and emotion.
• Lee Il Woo Voice of Silence. Cathartic portraits of tearstained young men and women struggling with emotional wounds against a background of sky and sea.   

Zhao Renhui, Hyunmin Ryu and Gabriel Jones - The Gallery, OldSchool

• Zhao Renhui Pulau Pejantan.  Visual diary of a journey to a fictitious place, a desolate lunar landscape punctuated portentiously by explosions, birds and other animals
• Hyunmin Ryu Giggle.  Forensic investigations into the absurd; performative, ironic and just plain silly.
• Gabriel Jones - Irhann.  Wild landscapes littered with space debris and missile parts

Special mention - Kurt Tong  - scoring double success with In Case It Rains in Heaven at the 2902 Gallery, OldSchool and award winning People's Park at the Lim Hak Tai Gallery (NAFA)

Singapore International Photography Festival 15 October - 13 November 2010. www.sipf.sg

SIMULATED ALTERNATE REALITIES- Artists' Talks and Curator's Tour

Organised by Travel to Learn in the City, an experimental visual arts education scheme,  Saturday (24 October) afternoon's artists' talks and curator's tour were held in the presence of an attentive and curious audience of educators and members of the public.  Their shared views, comments and reactions revealed new perspectives and interpretations of the works in the exhibition.  Thank you to Evangelo Costadimas, Syren Johnstone, Hiram To and David Boyce for generously making time for the event.